Donald Glover Evokes Rap Alter Ego in Community Christmas Jam

Now that Community has proven there’s no corner of the pulp-culture world it won’t ransack for a good joke, the show is mining the culture cache of its own cast members with a rap about “infiltrating” Christmas.

In Thursday night’s episode, Abed (played by Danny Pudi) and Troy (Donald Glover) go crazy in the musical number. The song is good number on its own, but it’s made significantly better by the fact that off-screen, Glover has been blowing up in the hip-hop world with the release of his album Camp under the moniker Childish Gambino. (Check out the record if you haven’t — it’s super good.)

But why is Troy rapping? Because he’s a Jehovah’s Witness. Wait, back up.

In this week’s episode, America’s favorite study group is called upon to fill in for the Greendale Glee Club in the community college’s holiday pageant. They’re hesitant at first, but one by one they succumb to the pull of singing and dancing about Christmas. In order to get Troy to play along, Abed convinces him that he could get around the Jehovah’s Witness rule against celebrating Christmas by being a holiday spy. It works.

The Christmas jam may not be as good as last week’s foosball anime, but it’s pretty amazing. And it’s dope to see Glover rap on Community — it’s like watching him pull out his secret weapon. It’s also interesting seeing the comedy directly reference glee clubs and the Community characters’ distaste for them, a move that could be seen as either a hat tip to (or jab at) the success of fellow pop-culture-obsessed show Glee.

Community airs Thursdays at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central on NBC. Added bonus: Check out the show’s cast in their great (and not too subtle) “Save Greendale” video for CollegeHumor below.